Gas exploration held back for 24 years
A proposal to drill an oil and gas exploration well in Mubarakpur of Pabna-- shelved for 24 years due to bureaucratic bottlenecks -- might see light at the end of the tunnel within a couple of months.
Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company (BAPEX) Ltd Managing Director (MD) Emad Uddin says the company is now preparing a fresh proposal for drilling the well. “We need at least two months more to submit the drilling proposal to the Planning Commission”, he said when contacted over telephone.
While the northern region is not known for oil and gas potentials, Mubarakpur was marked as a prospective area after completion of a five-year joint seismic survey of Petrobangla and German company Prakla Seismos in 1984 with financial assistance of Bangladesh and German governments.
On April 26 in 1986, German Geological Advisory Group and Petrobangla jointly submitted a proposal to undertake Mubarakpur oil and gas well project to ascertain the reserve of oil and gas in the area. Petrobangla accepted the proposal technically, and the government approved it on September 6 in 1987.
But the project did not make any progress till March 8, 1993 when the energy ministry approved a revised drilling proposal.
Seven years after this, the Petrobangla chairman at a meeting on March 27 in 2001 proposed to prepare a separate project pro forma (PP) only for Mubarakpur oil and gas well drilling. The PP was approved at the 239th joint board meeting of BAPEX and Petrobangla. Later, Petrobagla sent a separate PP to the Planning Commission through the energy ministry for approval.
The commission placed this project in the Annual Development Programme (ADP) on May 20 in 2004, and suggested that BAPEX recast and seek approval of it.
The government approved the project involving Tk 56 crore including foreign currency to complete it by February 22 in 2006. But the project made no headway, and the nation wasted 24 years in the process contributing to the existing energy crisis, noted one source.
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